Learning to speak Mandarin Chinese log...

[80Percent]

Well language learning turns out to be a lot of fun. I look forward to studying at night and have to keep myself from studying as long as I want or I know I’ll burn out and it’s also not efficient for my brain going more than 1-3 hours a day.

Still working Glossika and now starting FluentU. FLU is the bomb for my level. I’m A1.2 and use the Intermediate section. I barely understand it sometimes but once I listen a couple times, then listen with various types of subtitles it’s clear as day, then I listen again and take the quiz. 2 lessons takes me maybe 30 mins.

I gotta get back into learning new characters, no time like the present, off I go to do just that.

Oh, and my personal 3 month mission comes to an end soon, 2 more weeks. Nothing will change afterwards tho, so all good there as well.

[80Percent]

Omg, i'm exhausted. Seriously. But that's fine. I took a mini break yesterday by only studying 1 hour. . Will take a whole day off soon. Maybe the day after the 6 week challenge ends.

Glossika: Oh dear. So I was plugging away at a GMS file (their stop and parse files) until i hit the 651 file (sentences 651-700). It kicked my ass and i have to pull back. I did the file anyway and just listened, i could not repeat and there were a number of new structures in it that meant stopping and learning the whole time structure so i hit sentence 700 and now I put GMS on hold. *sigh*. BUT! I can still do GSR files so that's what i'll do. I'm dissapointed that i can't continue but there's always going to be that point i'll hit material i don't know (and don't have time to learn) and file 651 was that moment for Glossika GMS. I'll be back to it for sure, maybe in a handful of months. Kinda works out though, cuz class starts soon and Glossika GMS + GSR takes a full hour. GSR by itself takes only 20 mins.

FluentU Audio/Video program: Well this is fun. I prefer the audio clips to the video files b/c the videos are really native material and i can't hear them as well. It's only been a week so no idea what it will do for me but it's already taught me things i don't know and the quiz sections are done really well. I like it a lot. And 2 lessons and the quizzes takes about 30 mins, i like that too.

Du Chinese (reader app): having a blast in the elementary section clicking on all the new words, learning and reviewing characters, etc. I like that it has audio of all the stories and while i think reading Chinese is super cool, i actually kinda don't like the reading process very much. Shouldn't surprise me, i also don't like reading in general (unless it's information based, non-fiction type stuff). That's okay, it will help me in the long run, so i'm gonna stick with it. i do look forward to knowing several hundred more characters so that i can read something a hair more interesting than vignettes about buying headphones online. < 500 chars doesn't get me too far.

Also spending time recently with ChineseSkill app reading/listening "immersion" files. Good stuff.

Characters: TofuLearn (my character flashcard app) has been down a lot so that's been unhelpful, but when it's up it's the best thing since sliced bread. Anyone here a millionaire and can buy the program so someone can take care of the servers? tia.

But i am exhausted. I use all of these apps/programs every single day.

A1 is an awkward stage. But one day i'll be A2, then one day B1 and then that day that I can watch "Farewell My Concubine" without English subtitles, and it's this awkward stage that will get me there, so all is good.

[80Percent]

My brain is melting! That's okay though. lol. I've been doing shorter study sessions except for yesterday, unfortunate since I really wanted bronze in the 6 week challenge but there's always next time.

Funny, i was phone-banking Saturday for election time coming up and all the sudden i was getting a lot of Spanish-speaking voters. In the past my Spanish was good enough to ask and give the relevant voting information but as soon as i tried only Chinese would come out. lol. No matter how hard i tried. I'd brush up but i just don't have time b/c of my Chinese. Maybe if Gubernatorial candidate Gillum stays close in the polls Florida i'll be brushing up and making those calls (maybe as in most definitely).

One interesting side effect from learning Mandarin is that even though i really disliked learning Spanish, tried (and tried and tried), failed to be a b1, and said i'd never pick it up again, seeing how much i'm able to learn while learning Mandarin has inspired me to pick up Spanish again in a few years (or maybe earlier if i need to take a break from Chinese). My new plan is to get to B1.1 in it (mostly to help people in ny that are lost and to campaign in Spanish via phone or in person). I'm looking forward to it. Mandarin has given me the confidence. Who knew. I know too much and am too close and it is too useful, for me to totally give up.

And inspired by whomever made the glossika checklist app i did something somewhat similar for my daily Chinese studies, otherwise too easy to get lost.

daily.jpg

Still having fun.

[80Percent]

End of week 15 and My Summer Chinese Mission is over. : ). My friend and I do "season of so and so" to focus on pushing ourselves to be better. For example, one season for me was "Winter of Finances", and I kicked it's ass. Life changing for sure and got everything in order. For this summer I decided i would do a "Summer of Chinese". I knew i wanted to give Chinese a real shot after years of dabbling a few weeks every year and it worked better than I thought it would.

I started around the very end of May and have done 15 weeks of the more studying than i thought i could do, 1-3 hours a night.

The first week my thoughts were maybe i could learn 5-10 words a week, that i would see if i could study an hour a night, that i wouldn't take on characters for another 6 months and thought i'd probably end up giving up anyway.

15 weeks later: I've increased my vocabulary acquisition to 5 words a day, increased my vocab by 100's of words, learned my first 500 characters in less than 10 weeks, and gotten in a solid groove of studying every night.

I'm really really happy with how things have gone. Funnily enough I don't seem to be able to speak that much more yet but that's mostly b/c i backed up for characters, and i'm really happy about that, i'm almost caught up now (maybe 80%), and b/c I've entered a bit of a silent period while I acquire grammar and vocabulary.

My 2 Saturday classes (Chinese II & III) start at the end of the month. I'm so psyched for it. So is my friend who going into Mandarin I, and dragging my boyfriend with me as well, who is now thanks to my endeavor, also learning characters. I got him started on TofuLearn and Anki yesterday. He's a B1 legacy speaker who is now going to become literate in Chinese. He's pretty psyched.

All in all, the summer may have been life-changing because it has put me on the path to learn to speak Chinese. Now my journey to B1/B2 conversational Chinese begins.

and for fun, here's a blog post I wrote about all the apps I've tried! "Chinese Learning Apps, Which Are Worth It": http://alternaluxe.blogspot.com/2018/09/chinese-learning-apps-whats-out-there.html

[Joy Patrick]

I would recommend using Hack Chinese for learning words. This app has limited functionality or it is better to say has no unnecessary functionality. It allows you to track daily progress and constantly practice the words you have learned (due to spaced repetition methodology). You can learn new words according to the HSK level you select.